Week 3 Message
A Shared Language for Wellbeing
One of the strengths of our wellbeing approach is that we intentionally build a common language for children, staff and families to use when talking about emotions, friendships and social challenges.
In Kindergarten and Year 1, students engage with our WorryWoos program, which helps children identify, understand and talk about a wide range of emotions. Through stories and characters, children learn that feelings such as worry, loneliness, frustration and confusion are normal human experiences. Most importantly, they learn that emotions can be named, understood and managed.
From Year 2 onwards, students build on this foundation through Friendology. This program provides practical strategies for developing healthy friendships, resolving conflict and navigating the ups and downs that naturally occur in relationships. Students learn important concepts such as healthy and unhealthy friendships, "Friendship Fires", and how to respond when someone is being "mean on purpose".
As adults, it can be tempting to jump straight to labels when children experience social difficulties. However, one of the key messages we teach students is that not every disagreement, unkind moment or friendship problem is the same. Children benefit when we help them accurately identify what has happened, understand how they are feeling, and learn appropriate ways to respond.
This shared language works best when it is reinforced both at school and at home. We encourage parents to ask questions such as:
- What WorryWoo have you been learning about?
- What did you learn in Friendology this week?
- Was this a Friendship Fire?
- How did you Talk-it-Out?
- How were you feeling?
- What helped you solve the problem?
These conversations help children develop emotional awareness, resilience and confidence in their relationships.
We are pleased to be hosting a Friendology Parent Workshop on Tuesday 11 August at 6:00pm.
This session will provide parents with an overview of the concepts and language that students learn through Friendology and practical ways to support friendship development at home. While the program formally begins in Year 2, we warmly encourage Year 1 parents to also attend as their children will be introduced to Friendology next year.
We hope you can join us for what promises to be an informative and practical evening.
Friendology - Friendship Tip of the Week:
Within friendships, highly sensitive children are amazing friends – they’re super caring and thoughtful. However, little Friendship Fires feel like giant BONFIRES to them. Read this article to learn more about Highly Sensitive Children. https://urstrong.com/friendships-highly-sensitive-children/
If your child is highly sensitive, below is an activity to support them by giving them strategies to feel a little more in control and less helpless to their emotions. https://urstrong.com/resource/big-emotions-snow-globe/
Please sign up for a FREE lifetime membership to the Friendology Program using this link if you haven’t already. https://urstrong.com/parents/
Reminder: Friendology Parent Workshop August 11th 6pm. We would love to see as many parents as we can becoming involved in this program to help promote it at home. If you would like to attend please click the link.
Celebrating Our Reading Culture
One of the many things I have noticed and appreciated since joining St Mark's is the strong culture of reading that exists across our school. It is clear that reading is really valued here.
We know that children become stronger readers by reading regularly, and the partnership between school and home plays a crucial role in making this happen. For this reason, we encourage all students to spend 15-20 minutes reading each evening.
It's important to remember that reading at home can take many forms:
- Reading independently
- Reading aloud to a parent
- Reading together
- Listening to a parent read
- Sharing and discussing a picture book
- Enjoying a novel, graphic novel, magazine or information text
All of these experiences contribute to literacy development and help build positive reading habits.
The benefits of reading extend far beyond learning to decode words. Regular reading builds vocabulary, comprehension, fluency, imagination, empathy and critical thinking. Through books, children are exposed to new ideas, experiences and perspectives that help them better understand themselves and the world around them.
The impact of even a small amount of daily reading is remarkable. Research suggests that a child who reads for around 20 minutes each day may be exposed to approximately 1.8 million words in a year, compared with around 282,000 words for a child who reads for just five minutes a day.
Most importantly, reading together creates valuable opportunities for connection. In busy family lives, 15-20 minutes with a book can become a calm and meaningful part of the day, fostering not only literacy skills but also a lifelong love of learning.
Thank you for your continued support in fostering the strong reading culture we have.